January 21st gig at The Palms

Above: shot of the night, Miguel soloing on flute during "San Diego." Below, seconds later, goin' in tighter.

Below, Dave Phillipus trombone ride, same tune. "San Diego" was really thumpin' tonight, and the solos were inspired.

I thought it might be kinda slow tonight, but we had a standing room crowd again (though some of the seats on the upper section right side where they put in the rows of armless chairs were not filled. Lotta people just chose to stand). We finally got stage lights up at 9:45. They had to call from the bar and rag Engineering to get someone to come in and hook up the laptop. That's getting real old.

The enthusiasm was high all the way around. Santa Fe started off with the Earth, Wind, and Fire medley, and it was snappy tight and energetic from the first measure. Sonny nailed the sound mix right from the git-go, too. You could tell right away, it was gonna be a good show.

Next tune up after EW&F - "Ain't That Peculiar" from the 2007 live CD. Fat City Horns II nailed the horn ensemble interlude section, it was awesome. This was the final night for Fat City Horns II for now and they kicked major bootie. Below, Miguel Rodriguez, Tom Delibero, Glenn Colby, Dave Phillipus, Dave Stambaugh, and Eric Tewalt, Fat City Horns II. Gentlemen, thank you! Everyone has totally dug y'all.

Danny, Gil, Nathan, Jerry, Phil, and Rob are slated to return next Monday. I bet they will be ready to throw down. Don't you just know. And, we must make them dance. Jerry, are you hearin' me?

Be sure to come to the gig next Monday and welcome The Fat City Horns home. It's sure to be wild.

When the band started I was having to stay in the back to mind the Fat City Superstore because Cheryl was home not feeling well tonight. So, I squeezed off a few rounds from back at the table.

The compressed perspective lines you get from shooting telephoto are way cool (if you can hold steady in the low light, something I don't always manage). Below, Jerry doing the awesome "Si Te Vas."

Major props to my homies Ron Crews and Rudi Regalado for comin' to hang at the table so I could get around to shoot. Thanks, guys.

Tonight we were again blessed to have guests sitting in: The incredible Tony Davich of Phoenix, (whom I blogged on recently -- they are totally fine), and the always fabulous Michito Sanchez (scroll down in that linked post).

Santa Fe alum Tony ripped the seams outa "Soul Trilogy," man. Y'all gotta go hear him sing with his band. Below, Pepe, Michito, and Gabe get it on in "We Are Nothing."

Below, I got a couple of decent solo shots of Gabe tonight.

More random pics:

Below, Jerry introduced me to Celine Dion's keyboardist, Yves Frulla, who hails from Montreal, and has been doing her show at Caesar's. Very, very nice cat.

Yves told us about Celine's upcoming post-Caesar's world tour "Taking Chances" (also the name of her latest CD). Yves said it is an edgy new approach.

Yep. Here's a link to a "Taking Chances" YouTube video (they disabled embedding, so I can't just post it in the blog). Check it out.
______

OK, I'm tired, 3:30 a.m. Enough for now. Great night tonight, thanks to everyone for coming. New podcast on tap this week, BTW. Stay tuned.

TUESDAY UPDATE

Andy hipped me to this last night, and today it's up on his Soul Music Online blog.

Today, it comes as no surprise to me that Lenny Williams and Greg Adams have chosen to collaborate and build their own touring band, East Bay Soul. Read on, for the official press release announcing the concept, the band members, and the plan.

- Andy Ebon, CEO of Soul

So, in addition to other Major League Bad Boys, they're gonna have some cat by the name of "Tom Scott" in the lineup. I think we know him from somewhere.

That is gonna be slammin'.

CAMPAIGN 2008 UPDATE

Wherein BobbyG monitors and reports developments so you won't have to keep up with all this catatonia-inducing stuff. Nobody summarizes it better than these two cats: